The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Surgical procedures are often performed by skilled individuals, such as surgeons. The surgeons can perform various surgical procedures based upon their training and past experience, augmented by study of a particular patient. Nevertheless, various portions of a particular patient may be difficult to examine or identify depending upon the area of the anatomy to be examined and the positioning of the patient.
Surgical procedures where these difficulties may arise can include various neurosurgical procedures that affect various functions of the brain and nervous system. For example, a tumor or growth may be selected to be removed from a brain or a portion of the spinal column or the nervous system may be stimulated. Other procedures, however, may be performed to augment a portion of the brain without removing a portion of the brain, affecting surrounding tissue in the brain, or without visual cues of differences between the area of the brain to be affected and surrounding areas.
For example, certain neurological procedures can be performed that affect “functional targets”. The functional targets can be portions of the brain that naturally affect or control various portions of the anatomy but are, for various reasons, damaged. These functional targets in the brain can be stimulated through procedures such as deep brain stimulation (DBS). Functional targets, even if malfunctioning in a particular manner, may not differ anatomically or visually from the surrounding tissues. Functional targets can also be found in other portions of an anatomy, such as a spinal cord, peripheral nerves, etc. Therefore, it is desirable to provide a system that is able to determine the position of a functional target in the brain.